I'm using InDesign's Data Merge to build a catalog from a CSV file saved as .csv with Excel. Every time I try to import the data, InDesign stalls out and then "quits unexpectedly" after about 5 minutes. I can't imagine the data file is too big to import, as it has only 50 or so records now (there will be close to 1000 when the database is complete). Any troubleshooting tips?

In future, please put your crsh reports on pastebin.com, then put a link to them here. The forum is hard to navigate with crash reports in your post.

Are you previewing a multiple record per page merge before actually running it? If so, try merging without running the preview.

Also check your data file carefully to be sure that all records are actually the same length. Sometimes users attempt to put a line break of some sort into a cell in Excel, which is allowed, but it is not supported in .csv, so it messes up the record lengths.

InDesign won't even make it to the preview stage, when I select the data source is when the program freezes.

As for the line breaks, all the records are the same length with no split cells or anything in Excel. However, there are cells with no values (empty, not zero). In the .csv that is translating to item A, item B,,,,, Item G and so on, which worked fine before the formulas came along.

I have a lot of logic formulas going on in the Excel spreadsheet to get the values into certain cells. Its actually befuddled Excel to the point of shutdown now, so I'm assuming that if Excel can't handle it then I can;t expect InDesign to fare better. However, in my InDesign catalog I need, on a table row, to have a field with a label displayed for it if there is a value in that field in the .csv, and have no label displayed if there is no value for that field.

For example, if the record has a hooked beak, I need the label to be beak: so the line to read beak: hooked

If the record has no beak, then InDesign would skip that line altogether and go on to the next one. Like so:

<<record name>>

<<beak>><<beak value>>

<<tail>><<tail value>>

<<etc>><<etc value>>

where <<beak>> and <<tail>> are also fields in the Excel spreadsheet, each cell's contents a logical expression based on the existence of a value in the corrosponding beak value and tail value cells. English: "If value does not equal empty, then write beak: , else write nothing." When converted to a .csv, the field's values are preserved, not the formulas.

Does that make sense? And is there a way to do that with InDesign so I don't need umpteen thousand formulas going in Excel? That would pobably solve the clog.

Null fields should not be a problem, nor should formulae. The CSV file contains only text, not the logic, and ID is incapable of processing the formula even if the filed contains the logic instead of the result (but look at in a text editor to verify that nothing looks odd). If ID chokes when you select the dat file, there's probably something odd in it someplace.

There was indeed something odd, a column in the .xlxs containing a formula that repeated downward until the end of eternity. Cleaned that up, now Data Merge (and Excel for that matter) are running smoothly. Thanks for your help, the problem was user error as it often is.